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Subject: Re: Chessbase engine interface protocol

Author: Uri Blass

Date: 10:51:41 06/08/03

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On June 08, 2003 at 12:58:38, Mike Hood wrote:

>On June 08, 2003 at 11:01:07, Peter Stayne wrote:
>
>>In a possibly fleeting moment of inspiration, I was thinking, 'wouldn't it be
>>great to create an engine GUI for engine matches/tournies that supports all
>>forms of WB, UCI and Chessbase?'
>>
>>Problem is, I have seen very detailed information on WB and UCI's protocols but
>>not Chessbase's.
>>
>>Anyone got links?
>>
>>Pete
>
>I already asked this question a few months ago and got a reply from Ulrich
>Tuerke. I didn't save the reply, but I think I can remember his main points.
>(Ulrich, if you're reading this, please correct me if I get it wrong).
>
>Winboard and UCI use text pipes to communicate with the GUI, which isn't the
>method recommended by Microsoft for interprocess communication, but hey! It
>works! Chessbase's engines use the official Microsoft communications protocols,
>whatever they're called nowadays... OLE, DLL, Tic Tac Toe, .....

What is the advantage of the official Microsoft protocol?
Based on your post it only has disadvantages.

>
>The problem with the latter is that by using the Microsoft protocols, the engine
>effectively ceases to be a separate entity and becomes part of the GUI. That
>isn't a problem if the engine is working perfectly, but if the engine is buggy
>and crashes it means the GUI will crash.

I do not think that all the chessbase engines work perfectly and part of them
can crash in legal positions when one side has more than 200 legal moves.

 For this reason Chessbase is reluctant
>to make the Chessbase engine protocol public, since there's a danger of buggy
>engines being written that will lead to hundreds of people complaining to
>Chessbase that "Fritz 8 keeps crashing".

I do not see the problem.
If people use buggy engines then it is their problem.

Chessbase can warn the users not to use engines that are not known by chessbase
to be stable before they install them.

Uri



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